Future Air Traffic Controllers In Good Hands

The centre is a cooperative venture between the university and the CAA, the university being broadly responsible for the academic program, and the Authority providing facilities, equipment and simulator support. Students have the advantage of a liberal tertiary education, while training in a specific field. The course is multi-disciplinary, incorporating computing, aviation science and management skills into the program.

According to course coordinator and principal lecturer, Bob Hamilton, the program doesn’t aim to train students for a job, but seeks to educate for a career. The difference, he says, is not only better qualified ATS staff, but graduates who are equipped to cope with technological change and the pressures associated with the industry. “We want people to leave here not only trained, but with a range of life skills suited to the profession”, he said recently.

Bob certainly has an appropriate background for his position. A former US Army aviator, he has experience in charter work, ATC and Air Safety positions, as well as advanced planning duties with the CAA. The four lecturing staff are under contract to the university, and between them have 113 years’ experience in the Australian aviation industry. Other employees staff are either CAA staff seconded to the university (simulator operators), or specialist CAA support staff.

Twosimulatorsare used: a basic procedural AT S simulator and an advanced procedural and radar type. The basic unit has six ATS consoles linked to supporting blip driver positions. The advanced/radar simulator comprises of five FIS consoles and five ATC consoles – living proof, according to staff, that FIS and ATC can co-exist in harmony! Twenty-one blip drivers support this$11. 5m unit. Both simulators operate from 8am to 9pm daily, to give students maximum utilisation of this state of the art equipment.

Simulated exercises of increasing complexity use a fictitious block of airspace in northwestern Australia called Exmouth, including a high traffic density sector and an ocean sector. The radar is the ATCARDS system such as that used at Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Sydney radar (sadly, ed!) can be simulated by deleting several more advanced features of the system. FIS and ATC activities are rotated on a regular basis to ensure students can easily adapt to either area. To all intents and purposes, the scene in the advanced simulator room could be that of any major ATC centre in Australia. The only obvious difference is the ever watchful instructor sitting at eachwork station, closely observing each student. The situation may be synthesised, but the sweat on some brows is definitely not fake! Simulator instructor Rob Waldron points out that pressure is applied throughout the four semester course to prepare students for the tensions of guiding air traffic. The course itself is three years’ worth of training compressed into two years, partly to alleviate a current shortage in ATS staff, and partly to recreate workplace pressure.

While lectures feature throughout the program, the course becomes increasingly practical as students proceed. Several periods of field training give them hands on experience in different aspects of the aviation industry. Early in the course a week is spent inspecting aviation services in the Melbourne area, including airline facilities, Met offices, Aerospace Technologies of Australia Facilities and the area’s three airports, in addition to various ATC and FIS resources.

A second field detachment involves two weeks on the job with a Flight Service unit, and a week of familiarisation flights with either Australian or Ansett Airlines. The latter is an attempt to help students develop an understanding of many different real world situations faced by pilots, an aspect previously overlooked in training. Later still comes a four week stint with an ATC unit at a major centre.

The Launceston college has a capacity for 240 students, with intake numbers based on projected CAA needs. Present student numbers stand at 151. Applications always exceed places available, and an intensive screening process filters out unsuitable applicants. The $9,000 annual scholarship is a big “carrot” to some would be students, although this motive is fairly easy to detect and deal with. The planned centralisation of ATC operations to Brisbane and Melbourne (refer p. 46 May 91 AA) is not expected to adversely affect the facility. Mr Hamilton says a mid 40s “age bulge” exists in the present ATS workforce, many of whom will leave the industry in the next five to ten years, leaving a significant gap to be filled despite less places being available when the centralisation goes ahead.

“Our people are well equipped to enter a changing scene”, he says, pointing to the broad academic program which encourages a versatile approach to problem solving.

Another benefit of the course is that students are also in a position to fill future management vacancies, after completing the management skills component of the course. Upon graduation, students are assessed in the field for licensing. Once licensed, a first year graduate can expect an income in the $35-40,000 region, taking shift penalties into account. While the future of the school seems assured, other potential uses are being assessed, including possible retraining of present FIS personnel to ATC standard. Other short courses may be developed for staff of specific areas on an as needed basis.

Bob Hamilton would like to see the facility become a “centre of excellence” for air transport education in the Asia/Pacific region, and if the successes of the first couple of years are any indication, the sky could be the limit.